Going back to Africa! Before traveling to Francophone (French-speaking) Africa for the first time, I had to brush off my French instruction books from grad school to brush up on vocabulary, cognates, listening, phrases, and passe compose’. I discovered that there were a lot of videos on YouTube and went through a number of them. […]

Nigeria has plans to break through to produce their first Grandmaster and an official campaign was launched in February. One of the hopefuls in the Africa’s most populous nation is International Master Oladapo Adu. A long-time national team member, Adu spent a number of years in the U.S. before returning in 2016 to nurture chess […]

GM Maurice AshleyPhoto by Daaim Shabazz Côte d’Ivoire was Maurice Ashley’s 7th African country, all in a relatively short period of time. This would be the first visit to a Francophone African country and the Jamaican-born GM would put his French skills to use. Ashley took up French in high school with a desire to […]

The first event of the Grand Chess Tour is officially over and Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire will have in its history and world class chess event. There will be trivia questions such as the players who played, the hotel where it was hosted and that famous icon who was visiting the hotel during the event! All […]

Congratulations to @MagnusCarlsen for winning Côte d’Ivoire, the first leg of 2019 #GrandChessTour with 2 rounds to spare!! pic.twitter.com/xbEc8RCkTo — Grand Chess Tour (@GrandChessTour) May 12, 2019 After the election in the past FIDE election, there was an assertion that the international chess body would be more inclusive. While the Grand Chess Tour is not […]

Former World Champion Veselin Topalov with Daaim Shabazz in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire. Photo by The Chess Drum. Veselin Topalov has seen a thing or two in chess. Known as a tremendous fighter and the master of the exchange sacrifice, he has playing many a scintillating game. However, he is a bit more relaxed and is […]

When one thinks of the Ivory Coast, several things come to mind including their world-famous cocoa, but one unmistakable characterization is that the land of 23 million is a football-crazy nation. During the lead up of the Grand Chess Tour, there were a lot of promotional content including photos of Grandmaster Maurice Ashley interacting with […]

The Grand Chess Tour has begun! Ten of the world’s top players have assembled in the capital of Cote d’Ivoire to launching the first event of the season. World Champion Magnus Carlsen will headline the 2019 Rapid and Blitz field after having had a blistering first half of 2019. This event is also important because […]

All chess roads lead to Africa! On Tuesday, May 7th, ten of the world’s strongest players will gather in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire for the Grand Chess Tour Rapid & Blitz. It will feature the resurgent World Champion Magnus Carlsen who recently won his third straight supertournament by winning the Grenke Classic in fine style. Now […]

2019 Capital City Open Tallahassee’s BBCC hosted the 1st Capital City Open on a beautiful spring weekend. The tournament was the first open tournament in Florida’s capital since 2014 Froemke Memorial. More than 50 players came from Tampa, Jacksonville and Gainesville. NM Todd Bryant trotting out the Dragon against Steve Lenhert. The large majority of […]

When it was announced that Africa would be one of the hosts to a leg of the Grand Chess Tour (GCT), there was a bit of a celebration throughout the continent’s chess community. Magnus Carlsen will compete May 8th-12th in the Rapid and Blitz event in Abijdan, Cote d’Ivoire. He shall be the first sitting […]

Tallahassee, Florida Tallahassee is known as the “capital city” of Florida. Situation in the panhandle and near the Georgia border, it is home to two major universities (Florida A&M University, Florida State University), a community college (Tallahassee Community College) and the state capital. With just a bit over 190,000 residents, it is a city sticking […]

The 2018 World Rapid and Blitz Championships ended a couple of weeks ago. World Champion Magnus Carlsen was in the field facing many of the elite players. It is his first event since successfully defending his title against Fabiano Caruana. While he lost his rapid title, he totally dominated the blitz event with a +13 […]

The first super tournament will kick off in 2019 with the ever-popular Tata Steel Chess festival featuring some of the world’s top players. World Champion Magnus Carlsen will defend his title against 11 other aspirants including five others in the top 10. Santosh Vidit of India graduated into the Masters group after winning the Challengers […]

Only a month after the World Championship (classical) was decided, the 2018 Rapid & Blitz was held in St. Petersburg to determine the world championship in the two disciplines. Indeed the raging debate on how to determine a classical World Champion to include rapid and blitz tiebreakers has its merits, but of course the main […]

GM Pontus CarlssonPhoto by Daaim Shabazz GM Pontus Carlsson has been a regular on the Drum during the latter part of 2018 after launching his “ChessBiz” initiative and appearing on the Perpetual Podcast recently. He closes out the year competing in the World Rapid and Blitz Championships currently being held in St. Petersburg, Russia. This […]

When I was at the Olympiad in Batumi, Georgia, GM Amon Simutowe was part of many conversations about the future of African chess, particularly Zambia. While the country seeks to raise another GM, the comparisons with the Zambian Grandmaster are unavoidable. He is indeed an iconic figure on the landscape of Pan-African chess and history […]

In the aftermath of a successful hosting of the World Chess Championship that saw Magnus Carlsen defend his crown, the city of London is getting another gem of an event in the London Chess Classic. Fabiano Caruana is back in action after a valiant fight against Carlsen, losing in tiebreaks. This is the last tournament […]

2018 World Chess ChampionshipHolborn, London, England (November 9th-28th) Game 11 Carlsen ½-½ Caruana Match Score: 5½-5½ Official Site: https://worldchess.com/ 2018 World Chess Championship: Game 11 Saturday, 24 November 2018 Match still drawn after 11 games… Will tomorrow bring us a fierce battle or peaceful draw?? Today was a slow day and had the fans and […]

2018 World Chess ChampionshipHolborn, London, England (November 9th-28th) Game 10 Caruana ½-½ Carlsen Match Score: 5-5 Official Site: https://worldchess.com/ 2018 World Chess Championship: Game 10 Thursday, 22 November 2018 Brutal battle in London… neither side breaks Fabiano Caruana pondering after 21…b5!Photo by World Chess. Everyone weighed in on the fascinating battle at The College in […]